This is a good question. Publishers typically invest later in a project to help finish get it over the finish line. They used to invest earlier but over the ye

This is a good question. Publishers typically invest later in a project to help finish get it over the finish line. They used to invest earlier but over the years started investing later and later - as game engines got better and better, teams could do more with less funding so they stopped doing as much. IMO VC entering the picture was a reaction to less early funding from publishers - it's filling a need for larger more ambitious projects.